One more manifestation of the repression of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. The bishop emeritus of the diocese of Esteli, Mgr Abelardo Mata, 80, was arrested on June 30 as part of an investigation into corruption, before being released a few days later. “Following a necessary investigation into the origin of his property and his family ties which do not fit with his priesthood, Bishop Abelardo Mata returned to his home,” the Interior Ministry said in a press release dated June 4. According to this document, the authorities on this occasion collected from him “statements concerning various facts constituting offenses”.
Bishop Abelardo Mata, 80, had celebrated a mass two days before his arrest in Esteli, north of the capital Managua, during which he invited the faithful to pray for the persecuted Catholic Church, according to the Nicaraguan media Confidencial. “When he celebrates Mass, he prays for the Church and its bishops, including those in exile,” Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer and expert on the repression of the Church in the country and exiled in the United States, told AFP to explain the bishop’s arrest. On Monday, June 29, he was held for several hours then sent “under surveillance” to his home, but he was then arrested and taken to an “unknown destination,” according to Confidencial and the daily La Prensa.
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Nicaraguan Bishop Abelardo Mata, who was arbitrarily arrested by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship,” the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the US State Department wrote on Saturday June 4 on X. The octogenarian bishop “represents no threat to the regime and his health is fragile”. “We condemn the ongoing and cruel religious persecution and repression of the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship. Attacks on religious freedom must stop,” he added.
Hundreds of priests expelled
President Daniel Ortega, an 80-year-old former guerrilla who led the country in the 1980s after the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, returned to power in 2007. He is accused of establishing an autocracy with his wife and co-president Rosario Murillo, 74. They have carried out very severe repression on the Catholic Church since its support for anti-government protests in 2018, which left around 300 dead. Hundreds of Catholic priests have since been expelled.
According to the media Confidencial, Mgr Abelardo Mata, aged 80, “has always been one of the most firm bishops in his denunciation of human rights violations, crimes against humanity and the absence of democratic freedoms in Nicaragua”. The media indicates that during the 2018 demonstrations, “his voice was heard to denounce the massacres perpetrated by the Sandinista regime”.
